


The Cliffs and the Sea

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim), tfw you're just a little too drift compatible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28464117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: Things are getting serious and Matt needs a new drift partner. Foggy's pretty sure he's a terrible choice after last time, but... He'd do pretty much anything for Matt.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 82
Collections: DDE’s 2021 New Year’s Day Exchange





	The Cliffs and the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [siriuslyyellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyyellow/gifts).
  * Inspired by [falling is easy (anyone can fall)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690953) by [94BottlesOfSnapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple), [Crescent_Blues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crescent_Blues/pseuds/Crescent_Blues), [deniigiq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq), [Petrichor (Mythmaker)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythmaker/pseuds/Petrichor). 



> for the prompt: a Pacific Rim fusion where Matt and Foggy are Drift Compatible.
> 
> Since I was in the middle of working on a co-op PacRim AU when I got these prompts, it spoke to me immediately lmao - hope you enjoy it!! :D
> 
> For anyone coming into this without having read the other fic, this is all you really need to know:  
> \- Matt, Wade (Deadpool), Peter (Spider-Man), and Sam (Blindspot) are a pair of jaeger pilot teams with multiple drift capabilities; Matt in particular can drift with either Wade or Sam, but not Peter  
> \- Matt's main drift partner is Sam  
> \- Matt and Sam's jaeger is named BB  
> \- This fic is NOT canon to the main PacRim AU fic; think of it as canon-a-bit-to-the-left

“You’re... Joking, right?”

Fury’s one visible eye narrowed.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

The correct answer was no, but to be honest Foggy had no idea what the guy _did_ look like when he was joking, so...

“Maybe...?”

Fury took a deep, deep breath.

“Nelson,” he said, firm and calm in a way that brooked no arguments. “Whatever’s coming through the breach is big. Bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. Now, Chung is down for the count. Wilson’s with Parker, and that means your boy has no viable drift partner. We _need_ all hands on deck for this.”

They did. Foggy got that. He understood. The jaeger hangars were full of more bots than ever, but what Banner and Stark were picking up through the sensors left in the breach was on a whole other scale. And as much as Foggy hated it, he knew Matt needed to be out there.

But...

“Sir, I don’t think I can—”

“We won’t stick you in a jaeger first thing, Nelson. All I’m asking is a drift test.” Fury massaged his temples, sighed. “Please.”

The weight on the marshal’s shoulders seemed so great that Foggy couldn’t do anything but agree. Fear thrummed through his veins, lightning-quick to the point of dizziness, but he nodded anyway. Couldn’t force the words from his throat to tell Fury that it wasn’t about the jaeger at all, or the danger, or the fact that he didn’t have any experience fighting kaiju. Maybe those things were significant obstacles, but his real fear was the drift itself, and he didn’t know how to explain that.

“Stark’s getting the Pons setup together now,” said Fury. “Meet me in the lab in fifteen minutes.”

And then he was gone.

Because LOCCENT was still filled with SHIELD agents, Foggy left too and waited until he was on an abandoned walkway before he gave in to the urge to lose his shit.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted through clenched teeth, raking his fingers through his hair. “Fuck! _Fuck_!”

He stomped his foot because there was nothing to kick, slammed his palm against the walkway railing because he would need his hand unbroken if by some ungodly disaster he did end up in BB with Matt. For five minutes, Foggy let himself have his tantrum, and then he packed it all away — fifteen minutes was a generous amount of time to traverse the Shatterdome to the lab, but ten minutes would be cutting it close. Squaring his shoulders, Foggy headed out.

When he reached the ground level of the Shatterdome, a shadow fell over him. Even without turning to look, it was easy to tell who that shadow belonged to — based on the pit bull pressing his side to Foggy’s leg for attention. 

“Hey, Castle,” greeted Foggy, glancing up at the man who’d fallen into step with him.

“Going to watch the test drifts for Red?”

Never one to mince words, was he, Foggy thought to himself. Of course, then the words themselves sank in and reminded him what kind of stupid thing he was heading off to do.

“Actually, I uh.” Foggy swallowed, trying to force the queasy feeling up near his lungs to settle lower. “Fury wants me to be one of the test replacement partners.”

There was a low snarl, then, one Foggy might have guessed had come from Max if he hadn’t seen the dog look worriedly up at his master. Nope, not the dog. That growl was all Castle. After so many years, Foggy was desensitized to the aura of protective menace now rolling off the guy in waves, though, so it didn’t make him any more nauseous than he already was. 

“You tell him what happened last time?” Castle demanded, and Foggy cringed under the intensity of his stare.

“Not... Exactly.”

This answer prompted Castle to drag a broad, square hand down his face.

“Jesus Christ, Nelson.”

Yeah, that was about the long and short of it. But what was he supposed to do? The fate of the world — and of his world in particular — was at stake, here. Maybe it was going to end badly, but he owed it to everyone he cared about to at least _try_.

“Last time?” came the sudden query, so close beside him that Foggy jumped and clutched his chest. “You’ve drifted?”

“ _Jesus_ , Sammy! Warn a guy, please, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

How he’d missed the sound of crutches on the concrete floor, Foggy didn’t know. Had he really been so caught up in his own anxieties? When he looked over, Sammy’s face was twisted into an apologetic expression that just barely covered how brimming with curiosity he was. The boot on his broken left ankle was hideously neon pink and littered with familiar scrawl. It was too bad they hadn’t been able to scrounge up a wheelchair or one of those scooters for the kid, but the crutches, while old, were at least the right size. They brought Foggy back to memories of breaking his own leg as a teen — though by slipping off the roof of the family shop, not by getting slammed out of jaeger rigging by a kaiju.

After this assessment, Sammy was still looking at him expectantly. Foggy sighed and kept walking.

“Yes, I’ve drifted,” he said. “Just the once, with Matt. Wasn’t really looking for a repeat performance.”

“None of us were,” muttered Castle.

Beside them, Max whined, and his big sad concerned eyes earned him a pat or two.

“What _did_ happen?” Sammy asked hesitantly, clicking along beside them on his crutches. “With you and Teach?”

Foggy winced.

“It... It’s not a fun story,” he cautioned, but Sammy shook his head.

“Tell me anyway.”

Combing a hand through his hair, Foggy sighed.

“Well...”

—

Three pilots were better than two, that was true enough. But Castle didn’t have a three-man rig. He had two two-man ones. Which meant his team needed another pilot. Somebody compatible with Wade was right out, because he needed to be paired with either Matt or Peter. And Peter... Well. The kid had lost his only other drift partner pretty graphically. There wasn’t anyone waiting in the wings. That meant Castle needed to pull someone for Matt to pilot with.

In terms of compatibility Foggy was the obvious first choice, according to Matt. Foggy found his certainty flattering, at least, even if it wasn’t shared. More heartwarming was the way Matt had waffled over the thing, how he’d told Foggy he didn’t want him to be in danger.

“It’s just a drift test first, right?” Foggy reminded him, unconcerned. “Don’t go borrowing tomorrow’s troubles, Murdock.”

It was only when Castle’s Pons setup was assembled in the middle of their tiny law office that the nerves actually hit. The misgivings. Matt was a disaster in some respects, but he was also an amazing superhero. What was Foggy, to that? What could he offer Matt? Those same creeping fears of inadequacy that had always plagued him reared their heads once more and left Foggy’s hands trembling on the Pons helmet.

“Nelson?” Castle asked, eyes narrowed.

“Yes? Yes! It’s nothing,” he promised, and shoved on the helmet.

Matt, that lie detecting asshole, shook his head.

“It isn’t nothing.”

His voice was muffled by the helmet, but still clear and sharp enough to cut right to the heart of the matter.

“You can’t read my mind, Matt,” muttered Foggy, shame prickling under his skin like nettles. “Not yet anyway.”

“You’re afraid,” Matt said, like it was that simple. “I know you are. I don’t have to be in your head to know that, Fogs. You always think you’re not enough.”

“Matt...”

“Just trust me. I won’t let you get hurt.”

Like he always did, Matt held out a hand. And like always, Foggy took it.

“Start the drift,” Matt ordered.

There was a click-slam of the lever hitting home, and a jolt like some terrifying combination of static shock and leaning too far back in your chair. But Matt’s fingers tightened around Foggy’s, and that small bastion of safety stopped him from fighting the current flowing between them.

 _Them_.

Flashes of his own memories — the shop, college, Matt bleeding on the floor of his apartment — tumbled around with what could only be Matt’s. Not sight, but blazingly vivid sensations of sound and smell, texture and taste. Sweat, maybe Fogwell’s gym? Something sweet and bright. The viscous slide of blood between his knuckles. Matt’s mind was a maelstrom, ever-shifting, no steady place to stand.

And yet, when the waves slammed against him, Foggy didn’t feel rocked off his feet. This was Matt. And Foggy knew Matt like no one else. That certainty, the hand in his own, his name warm and familiar on Matt’s tongue, was all Foggy really needed. If Matt was the sea, then Foggy could be the cliffs it crashed against. Solid and waiting and ready. Unshakable.

“Both hemispheres calibrated,” Foggy heard distantly.

He inhaled and exhaled and realized he was doing it with Matt’s lungs.

Their hands were still clasped. Foggy’s left in Matt’s right, they remembered that. But the sensation was more like holding their own hand, none of the revelation of holding someone else’s. It was... Bizarre, even unsettling, but ok.

Then they opened their eyes, and that was when everything went wrong.

One pair of eyes saw nothing where it expected to see the office. One pair of eyes saw the office where it expected to see nothing. Their clenched hands tightened. Likewise, their thoughts tightened back in on themselves. Closer, closer together, seeking comfort. And it _was_ comforting, for half a second. But then... Then, with the shock over, they exhaled and tried to separate themself. There were meant to be two parts, they were sure of it. Two pilots connected in a drift. But... Where did one begin and the other end? Where—

There was no seam. No place where one mind could be separated into two. With each second, confusion began to morph into fear. They searched themself, frantically. There was nothing.

They weren’t the cliffs and the sea anymore, they were— waterlogged sand. This amalgam that wasn’t anyone, just a fusion of component parts devoid of context. Gasping. Four lungs and they still couldn’t breathe. A flash of terror.

_What if I’m never myself again?_

They couldn’t even remember who ‘myself’ was.

They couldn’t. Couldn’t... Nothing made sense. They closed their eyes again, because eyes closed was supposed to mean dark, didn’t cause the dizzying dissonance of sight to a mind expecting blindness or blindness to a mind expecting sight. But they still couldn’t get their hearts under control, and the feedback of the other two heartbeats in the room weren’t helping. It was too loud. Too much. And as they panicked, the scent of their fear filled the air.

The other two beings in the room were speaking, asking questions. But the mouths wouldn’t speak — could only gasp. They shook their heads, one with short hair and the other long. But... Which was which?

Minutes later, or years, the other people’s questions began to shift into demands, shouts— An argument? Yes. Yes, they recognized the cadence of an argument, even if the words themselves slipped and slid through their mind like soap bubbles without any comprehension.

“I’m telling you to turn it off!”

Karen. That was Karen. Her indignation, so familiar to both halves of themself, was a shallow foothold in the sand.

A lever slammed home, deafeningly loud—

And then Foggy was alone. The fear and confusion was gone, but so was the warmth of Matt’s mind twined up close next to his. It was like there was a hole, a gaping wound that radiated an icy chill. Matt’s hand was still clasped tight in his own, but both were clammy and slippery with sweat.

Foggy pulled away. Pressed both of his hands to his temples. Nausea swelled up from his gut into his chest.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” he slurred, closing his eyes against the way the room swirled around him. “Matt... Matt? You ok?”

Tears were pricking at Foggy’s eyes, but he didn’t know why. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eye sockets to hold them back.

“I’m.” Matt’s voice caught. “I’m fine.”

It sounded like a lie; though, the words ‘I’m fine’ never sounded truthful coming from Matt’s lips. Still, this lie in particular was especially egregious — if Matt felt half as horrible as Foggy, he was in a seriously bad place. And Matt was the important one, the one they couldn’t afford to break. He had to pilot.

Castle didn’t push for them to try again.

—

“And then you showed up,” Foggy concluded, tilting his head towards Sammy. “And everything was right with the world.”

There was an amused scoff from Foggy’s right, but he didn’t dignify Castle with a response or acknowledgement.

“You mean except for the kaiju?” asked Sammy, who was clearly learning too much from Castle for anyone’s good.

Still, turning the topic back to kaiju was for the best. Castle already knew, of course, the way that drift had fucked Foggy and Matt up for weeks — they couldn’t even bring themselves to touch one another, minds screaming with a visceral fear of slipping back into that place where they’d lost themselves. Sammy didn’t need to know about any of that. Everything was fine now. Matt was a good pilot; he knew what he was doing in the drift. It was just Foggy who was a problem.

Matt drifted fine with Wade and Sammy. The only difference in that test was that he’d tried it with Foggy instead. It was Foggy who was the problem. He’d... He’d clung too tight. It had to be that. He’d clutched at Matt like a selfish little kid, wanting more than he was supposed to, more than Matt could give him, and that had broken the balance of the drift.

Hopefully knowing that, keeping himself in check, would prevent a repeat performance. But there was no guarantee of that.

At last, the four of them — counting Max — reached the lab. Stark, Banner, and their cadre of lab assistants were lined up along one wall checking screens and tapping tablets. Fury was front and center with his arms folded behind his back. And already in place next to the Pons unit for the first test was Matt. He looked like a man ready for the gallows; face drawn, his skin pallid and sickly. It... Wasn’t a great omen for what was about to happen. But Foggy knew neither of them had the luxury of being squeamish now. Not with a creature large enough to be called a Category 6 lurking just inside the breach, so massive it had blown their entire understanding of scale out of the water.

“Hey Matty,” Foggy said as he approached the Pons, brightly as he could. “Ready to rock this?”

Matt opened his mouth as if to speak, but he closed it again without having said a single word — maybe remembering the disastrous jinx he’d laid on them the last time.

 _I won’t let you get hurt_.

After wetting his lips and trying twice more to summon his voice, Matt simply nodded, silently.

They put on their helmets. They didn’t hold hands this time, and Foggy found himself simultaneously disappointed and relieved.

“Now,” ordered Fury.

Stark began the countdown.

“Drift in three, two...”

Click. Whoosh. Thud.

It had been so long it was almost like the first time all over again, a brief mental jerk like falling, and then the storm of sensory memory. The snatches of their lives whirling around in Foggy’s mind were different, some more recent, but at the same speed and intensity as Foggy remembered from the first time.

He let them pass, didn’t try to latch on to any particular one, let all those component pieces just _be_ himself and Matt. Their connection was just as strong as before.

But then... It wasn’t just him and Matt, not really.

Drifts left a mark on people. Sammy and Wade weren’t actively part of the neural link, but, Foggy realized, he could feel little snatches of them in the drift, pieces left behind. Fingerprints on a window, footprints in the snow. There was Wade, spinning like a whirlwind, an opposite current to Matt that canceled them both out and left the seas of their shared mind smooth like glass. And Sammy, light and fierce, a gust of winter air that danced and mingled with the dark spray of the churning water. And then...

And then, suddenly, like the flash of a lighthouse beam cutting through the blanket of the darkness, Foggy felt an echo of _himself_ in Matt. Not as heavy as the presence of his longtime piloting partners — smaller, fragile, but... Carefully preserved. A porcelain figurine folded gently in velvet.

The intentionality of that preservation made Foggy’s heart squeeze and his eyes fill with tears.

“How’s the drift?” Fury asked.

Foggy and Matt turned towards him, and for a single terrifying moment, that sludgy fused feeling from their first drift returned. Wrong, simultaneously too much and not enough. Not enough air, not enough separation, too much noise, too much confusion.

But Foggy recognized it and pushed through it, clutching tightly to that little trace of himself in Matt, protected and treasured and insoluble. He and Matt weren’t one being, they were a synchronized team. Two parts working together. And that was exactly what they were supposed to be.

Foggy let out a shaky breath, with his own mouth. Matt was still there in his head, lapping ocean waves with a roiling undercurrent, but. But Foggy was himself. Standing strong, the cliff face on the edge of the sea. He felt heavier somehow, as if he’d been floating before and had just settled onto his feet.

“I’m. I’m ok,” he managed, brow furrowing as he realized the cadence he’d taken on was oddly Matt-like. “I mean, uh. Mostly.”

“We’ve got a little distance this time,” agreed Matt. “It’s a good drift. Foggy’s got me.”

His voice was warm with admiration that Foggy could actually feel flowing through their neural link. Foggy’s heart stuttered, and he knew without looking that there was a grin on Matt’s face.

“Readings are looking great,” confirmed Stark. “Perfect, actually.”

“Good,” Fury said. “That’s step one. Step two... Nelson? Can you fight?”

Not like Matt could fight. But jaegers were big and slow — even the nimblest of them. Foggy had seen the footage, and Matt fighting in BB was nothing like him fighting in the back alleys of Hell’s Kitchen. Foggy could throw a decent punch, and as long as Matt was there to feed him information through their neural link, it wouldn’t matter that he didn’t know all BB’s functions. He and Matt would have each other’s backs, like they always did.

“Enough,” Foggy answered confidently. “If you need us, we can do it.”

“Murdock?” asked Fury.

Matt nodded.

“Foggy’s right. I’ve never met anyone with a memory like his; if I push something through the neural link, he’ll know it forever. We...” He took a breath. “We can fight.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

—

Things moved at a whirlwind pace after that. Stark shut off the Pons, and almost immediately the Shatterdome blared with alarms. Whatever had been squeezing through the breach had finally made it to their side.

And so, Foggy was bustled away from Matt to be fitted with a drivesuit. They only met again on the catwalk leading right into the cockpit in BB’s head, suited up with helmets tucked under their arms. For a moment Foggy saw a past, or a future, where they did this every day. Went into battle together here like they did in the courtroom. Maybe Matt was imagining that too, because like Foggy he lingered on the threshold and didn’t step into the cockpit of the jaeger.

“Foggy?”

His voice was hesitant.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“When I say... You...” Matt stopped, blew out a frustrated breath with his brows scrunched. “You know what I mean, when I say I love you, don’t you?”

Foggy cleared his throat.

“It uh, it goes without saying, right, buddy?” he replied.

It was, in fact, The Thing They Didn’t Talk About. Maybe because Matt was allergic to feelings even on a good day, or because quiet acceptance was as much as Foggy had ever braced himself for — the specific nuances of what fell into an ‘I love you’ between them just never came up. They were important to each other, and that was always the most relevant part. Foggy had never doubted it, not once.

But Matt shook his head.

“Sometimes...” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes it needs to be said. I learned that from you. The thing is... I’m not always good at, at asking for what I want. And the way things have been is comfortable. But, uh...” Matt shrugged, offered that same charming, crooked smile that had captured Foggy’s heart since they were just dumb kids. “They do call me Daredevil. Might as well take the leap.”

It was as if the whole universe had slowed to a gentle stop, suspended in amber and honey. Foggy swallowed.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s been fifteen years, Fogs,” Matt pointed out, and his voice was achingly tender. “I’d like to kiss you now, if that’s ok.”

If that wasn’t a sentence that could melt a man’s heart like an ice cream cone, Foggy didn’t know what was. He swallowed once, twice.

“Yeah, uh, sure thing, go for it.”

“Such enthusiasm.”

Despite his teasing tone, Matt’s expression was totally besotted as he traced the fingertips of his free hand up Foggy’s jaw and then finally, finally leaned in for a kiss. It was soft at first, slow, even chaste — like Matt was savoring the moment. Even so, it sent a spark all through Foggy that had him surging closer and steadying himself with a hand on the pauldron of Matt’s drivesuit. Never shy about taking a cue, Matt deepened the kiss with an intensity that nearly made Foggy drop his helmet.

And then like the tease he was, he backed off, dropping three quick little smooches on Foggy’s mouth and then turning towards the jaeger. Foggy rolled his eyes.

“One more,” he murmured, tugging Matt back in for a last peck on the lips. “For luck.”

Matt beamed as he pulled away to finally step into the jaeger.

“I don’t need luck — I have you.”

Pausing just inside, he held out a hand back across the threshold. Eager, confident, impossibly charming and impossible to resist.

So Foggy did what he always did when Matt’s hand reached out for his own — he took it.


End file.
